and& Summit & Festival 2018

and& Summit & Festival 2018
Leuven, located about 20 miles east of Brussels, feels like a model town. It's a clean, green and ergonomically designed urban space, low on traffic and high on resplendent 15th-century architecture. Fresh fruit is freely available in seemingly every building. The central square swarms with bright-eyed student cyclists, while older residents mosey around in hats branded with the EU flag. It benefits from a total absence of tension. As such, it felt like a fitting yet also slightly ironic location for and&, a new multi-disciplinary festival whose core aim was to further iron out society's wrinkles.

By the time I saw any music, I'd already witnessed the Vice President Of The European Commission explore Leuven in a driverless car, attended a seminar on the future of robotics (talking rice cookers are imminent) and lay on beanbags in a makeshift cinema room, watching a reel of stylised, politicised videos made for Travis Scott and Young Thug. The buzz words of "intervention," "disruption" and "creativity" were all over town, in pamphlets on every bar counter and on outsized purple murals celebrating the guest speakers. The infrastructure and initiative to provoke real dialogue and cultural exchange were evident. The main question I had in mind was how and&, sister event of another Belgian festival, HORST, would reconcile its high-minded daytime activities with the nighttime programme.

The bulk of the music was split between the Het Depot auditorium and International House, a campus building up the road. Ultimately this was a flaw: it was hard not to feel that International House had been tacked on for lack of a better venue. The main room wasn't set up right for dancing or live performances. Whereas the talk summit was meticulously organised and ran like European clockwork, a few of the acts at International House got started late or were exposed by a bright stage setup that did them few favours.

The audiences, though, were attentive and curious throughout. The mood was boozy rather than druggy—abandoned bottles of Kasteel and La Chouffe lay strewn on the pavement outside. On Thursday night, Jlin's rhythmic assault had people intensely head-banging. Donna Leake played to a spottier crowd, albeit one who enthusiastically cheered every break of Emiliano Salvador's expressive "Son En 7/4" (there are a lot of them). At the same time, Het Depot hosted Forest Swords and Binkbeats. Given that both trade in slow, intricate, cerebral fare, the full turnout on Friday night was good to see.

Speaking to some of the students, the prevailing feeling was that Bicep and Joy Orbison were irresistible draws for a town that sees little action. So it proved: whole families turned out for Saturday night's centrepiece. Joy Orbison was on typically impressive form, pacing through punchy house and swarming, dark electronics; a mid-set climax of The Exaltics' remix of Dynarec's "In Your Hand" was a beautiful moment. Bicep's steady set of pleasure-centre electronica similarly hit all the right notes—their steady transformation into Orbital felt almost complete. More fun, though, was Nosedrip from Belgian label STROOM, who played a collage of colourful jams, like Loui$' "Pink Footpath," in International House's lesser-used basement. With a low ceiling and robust sound, it had all the right ingredients, and could have transformed sets by the likes of Project Pablo and Laurel Halo from stand-and-stares into proper dances. For next time, I'd recommend making better use of this space to improve the balance between the two sides of and&'s brain.